To Touch is to Annihilate Me
by overlord-of-the-bees
Summary: He waited. God, how he waited for every moment of it. Every incidental brush. Each light kiss of skin. Each harmonious explosion of sensation at the unfamiliarity, the unpredictability, the exhilaration of it. When they touched, his Grace imploded. And now. None. Oneshot. Spoilers 9x23. Castiel returns to Dean's body to mourn.


Touch. He'd never been allowed that before; at least, not so exploratory, not so indulgent, not so fascinated. He used to think touch was tortuous – restrained bridled moments, utterly beyond him. There was too much care to be had with the physical delicacy, and the emotional delicacy too. Even the touch to the air around him had to be cautious: "Cas, we talked about this. Personal space?"A stifled swallow and the nervous twitch of an eyelid made it disallowed. Even touch in the rake of an eye – a lasting stare: "Cas, not for nothin', but last time somebody looked at me like that, I got laid."

He used to think that touch was tortuous, but now he _knows _it is too great a burden to bear.

He knew the power of his touch, when the flesh lived. A rush of blood to the sticking place, a frozen heartbeat, a suspended gaze. More than that, his touch _was_ power: "I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition". His touch cleaned the soul and rebuilt the shreds of ragged humanity. His touch stitched slashed, pulverised flesh into a new shape, a stronger shape – and a righteous shape. His touch was restorative.

Or it had been. There is no restoration in it now. Only dumb futility as it roams hopelessly across the expanse.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

There is the wound. The death knell. The final assault. Beneath rough fabric dried concrete with blood and meat, stretched around the body swollen with wounds and with death. Bloating. He is bloating.

Dean. Dead. Dean. Dead. Dean. Dead.

Eyes closed, without a flutter. It isn't sleep, its less than stone. Even stone has within it strength, endurance and resilience. This is not resilient, this is decaying. Already. Already falling apart, beneath his hands. Disassembling, crumbling, ruining.

"Oh God, don't leave me, please."

Lips white. White! Chalky, sallow, and flimsy. Where is the plump, the pulse, the sheen? Like little plasticine models of what once were. Pale imitation, paltry substitute.

_I'll kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet doth hang on them_. Romeo and Juliet. What folly. Not his lips. A body's lips. A pretension. His lips – they were red, rosy, ready. But what for he hadn't known. Never knew.

"Dean, I'm sorry. I'm so _uhh_-"

Hand stiff to the touch. _Come, let me clutch thee_. Hamlet. Please, clutch, please. Bony. It might crack beneath his hold, beneath his desperate squeeze. The hands that built mountains, that held together shards of humanity, that doled out and took life so fiendishly. Such conviction, such assurance.

Hands, the instrument of your undoing too – clutched at the dagger that would have slashed you apart. It did. It did.

"Who left this, I-"

The dagger won't shatter, of course it won't. It endures beyond its master, spiteful thing.

Clutch at the hand. _I'll never let go, I'll never let go_, _Jack_. Titanic.

A face that he dares to touch. The bridge of a nose, arched so gracefully. Hollow cheeks. Sallow, drying skin. Dots of sunshine upon his face. Kisses of angels. If only.

_If freckles were lovely_. E. E Cummings.

"_Huuh, huuh. _No. No. _Aaaah_"

Another touch – moisture. Spots of salt falling onto the unfeeling service. The touch of air of cries that pound out against the ruined chest when he falls to it.

_Why have you forsaken me? _Psalm 22:1

He's forsaken him, more than anything else, hasn't he? This manufacture so purposefully put and so forced into this undoing, now abandoned to nothing more than the simple press of a dagger into a lung. Wheezing out the force that drove him until he lies, deflated, wrinkling, and weak.

_There he is – gone! As they say in Tyreelin_. Patrick McCabe, Breakfast on Pluto.

Oh Father who art in Heaven, would you let him there? With the blemish he bears on his arm? With what has been witnessed, who could believe so. Who could know? He went to Hell once, and the dead souls will be like a siren call. They'll feast on his purity.

"Please Father, please, let him pass through the Gates."

_Let him pass. Let him be spared. _The Fellowship of the Ring.

Bones. He'll burn down to his bones in the acrid air. His flesh will dissolve in it to dust and dissipate. Dean everywhere. Dean nowhere. Dean dead. Dead. Dead.

The knobs of bones at his wrist – broken there, swollen from the kick and press of a boot. Bones at his jaw – strong, jutting, determined. Determined for what? The end of it?

Bones to journey across at his ribs beneath the ragged shirt. Bones at his knuckles – dried blood and bruised from the force of his blows.

"Oh God, Dean."

Clean. He smells clean when his nose touches the skin of the broken wrist. Fresh. Not rotting. Not yet. Avowed of his sin by his brother's trembling hand, and rag after rag, pink with his blood in the warm water. Wash away the sin and the pain.

Touch. It's too much to bear. To feel his touch cast so wantonly and without reply. Warm fingertips on cold, dry flesh. Trembling press against still, rigid form.

_When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact_. Wallace Stegner, Angel of Repose.

He waited. God , how he waited for every moment of it. Every incidental brush. Each light kiss of skin. Each harmonious explosion of sensation at the unfamiliarity, the unpredictability, the exhilaration of it. When they touched, his Grace imploded. And now. None. "When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost." He was. Lost magnificently. But now magnificence descends to horrendous terror and sorrow.

_Be lost. Give up. Give in. In the end it would be better to surrender before you even begin. Be lost. And then you will not care if you are ever found. _Victoria Schwab, Vicious.

It was only in knowing him that he knew himself. You are what I was made to feel for. That I was made to comprehend all to read the stardust of your skin. Without you, I am but a vessel of knowledge, but without comprehension.

_I think of strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul_. Bram Stoker, Dracula.

"Dean, I need you. I-"

Beat. Twitch. Recoil. What?

It's there again, a crack. A merciless harrowing breach of the sanctuary of farewell.

A rip.

That's it.

The fracture of a soul.

Then his eyes open.

Dean. Dead. Dean. Dead. Dean. Dead.

"Hello, Angel."


End file.
